The next several days were hell. Ghoajin came out for a few hours each day to help and to give me a chance to sleep while she tended the sick. She taught me about the medicinal roots and herbs they used to help soothe pain and aid sleep. When she was gone, I used the herbs she had prepared for the three men and stayed up most of the night to watch over them.
Lumpy passed on my fourth night, and I wept as I had never wept before. Not that I knew him, but because Batu's boils had spread, and I couldn't fathom the idea of living in the steppes of Mongolia without him.
Several of Lumpy's kinsmen came out after Ghoajin carried news back of the warrior's death. They built a funeral pyre between us and the camp, and Ghoajin and I wrapped Lumpy in blankets before hooking his pallet to a horse to be taken to the pyre. I dragged his body on top of it, and Ghoajin lit the fires, praying the entire time.
His death - while expected - still came as a blow. I had seen so many lives snuffed out while here through a combination of war and disease. The memories of all who died left me emotionally raw, frightened and once more questioning the greater meaning of life. Specifically, my life and why I was stuck here to deal with such sorrow.
I returned to the ger while Ghoajin spent hours beside the dead warrior's pyre. Smoke twisted and curled into the skies above us, and I sat beside Batu, my eyes almost too swollen from crying to see out of. Sliding my hand into his, I squeezed gently.
He was unconscious and had been for most of the day after throwing up blood several times in the morning. Ghoajin had knocked him out with some herbs. Boils covered most of his body, and I absently began cleaning his skin once more.
Grumpy was doing better than I thought he would. He slept most of the day, woke up to throw up once, then settled into a deeper sleep. His sores were beginning to heal over, even though his fever remained.
While I wasn't fully certain, I took the healing to be a sign he wasn't going to keel over and die next.
Several more days passed in a haze of exhaustion and worry. Every morning, I opened up the tent to sunlight and the winds of the steppes. I was getting better at rolling the tent flaps, though my work was nowhere near pretty.
The morning routine was the same: water all around, prepare herbs and milk for the men, wash them down and then wait for Ghoajin to relieve me. After a few hours of sleep, I'd drag the two men into the sun with the desperate hope that sunlight would help kill any additional bacteria and dry out their sores.